Why Binance is Building its Own Decentralized Exchange (DEX) for the Future

Most well-known Cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide are centralized, meaning they are run by a central authority which complies with stringent regulatory guidelines.

Research conducted by Mistertango found that 88% of all Cryptocurrency Exchanges are highly centralized.

How do centralized exchanges work?

Let’s say Adam deposits his U.S Dollar or Bitcoin into his Binance account.

His balance is then credited into the accounts of the Binance company and their wallet addresses.

What he owns is just an ID that ties his name to the related account. Adam does not own his private keys.

As the saying goes, “Not your keys, not your crypto.”

But why is this so important? Can’t we trust a Billion dollar corporation? No.

The bear market of 2013–2015 saw the price of Bitcoin crashing from its all-time-high of $1300 to just $200 and it was triggered by the breach of Mt. Gox, the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange that constitute more than half of the world’s trade.

Hackers made off with approximately 750,000–850,000 bitcoin, worth around $450 million at the time. While investigators managed to recover some of the funds many years later, the breach ultimately became the benchmark of security vulnerabilities in centralized systems.

Do not trust the marketing polish and brand of corporations with millions of dollars at their disposal.

Bitcoin was and still is the Ultimate Game-changer for Decentralization

The whole inception of the idea of decentralization started with the introduction of Bitcoin.

For Bitcoin is meant to be used between two parties on the internet while sidestepping the banks and intermediaries.

Centralized exchanges (CEX) on the other hand are the new banks of cryptocurrencies.

They function as custodians of your crypto and your funds.

Hence, they will become the focal point of attack in any scenario by both the government or bad actors.

CEXs are Not 100% safe. Don’t trust them with your life investments.

The CEO of Binance, CZ understands this pretty well. And that is why he is building the Binance DEX for the future of his business.

Using cryptocurrencies IS analogous to being your own bank. And that means personal & financial responsibility. Popular centralized exchanges such as Bittrex or Coinbase, are actually a liability to our decentralized future.

Not only that, they are subject to all kinds of manipulation by whales and traders. What kinds of manipulation? Read it all here.

While a centralized cryptocurrency exchange server enhances your trading experience, it is actually detrimental to the security of your funds.

So what exactly is the solution?

The solution is turning all the centralized servers into a distributed ledger-based trading system.

What Is A Decentralized Cryptocurrency Exchange (DEX)?

A Decentralized Exchange is an open source exchange market which is an automated digital asset trading platform. It does not rely on a third party to hold the consumer’s funds. In a DEX trades are executed in a peer-to-peer manner.

DEX cannot be easily corrupted or taken down by hackers because there is no central control

DEX are harder to regulate or even shut down as they are not restricted to a single physical location. No government can shut it down like the Chinese shut down of exchanges

DEX respects the original intent of the blockchain technology by maintaining users anonymity. It doesn’t require numerous personal for AML and KYC compliance

DEX relies fully on its users, hence it not governed by any outside companies

Benefits of Decentralized Exchanges:

DEXs offer greater security as it the users themselves who hold their private keys – a random set of words required to unlock your account. This feature itself makes it difficult to hack a decentralized exchange

DEXs have distributed worldwide hosting making it difficult for government intervention

There is virtually no risk to infrastructure downtime as the hosting of DEX is distributed through modes

DEXs have no dedicated authority, which makes it extremely difficult to get answers for your questions

Binance To Launch Its Decentralized Crypto Exchange on 2019

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume is launching its own blockchain which will support the anticipated decentralized exchange Binance DEX and host its native Binance Coin as announced by the company in a Medium post.

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, in a July interview to CNBC Crypto Trader, had stated that he personally believes decentralized exchange is the future of crypto.

“I believe that decentralized exchange is the future. I don’t know when that future will come yet. I think we’re at an early stage for that so I don’t know if it’s a year, two years, three years, or five years. I don’t know but we got to be ready for it,” he said.

According to the company’s Medium post from December 5, 2018, Binance plans to launch their own blockchain network. While there is no confirmation about the launch date, the company said that the network is expected to kick off around the first few months of 2019.

As stated in the press release:Binance DEX is made by the blockchain community, for the blockchain community, with support from Binance developers, as part of advancing our mission to spread the freedom of money.

As reported by Binance, the community-driven decentralized exchange, which will allow traders to issue and exchange digital assets without having to deposit onto a central exchange, went from concept to coding to interface.

Details on when Binance Coin will transition from ERC20 token to native Binance Chain asset will also be revealed soon.

The Road Ahead – Future for DEXs

With the drawbacks of DEXs, it’s no surprise if you are skeptical about its future. However, its benefits will triumph over its shortcomings as more progress is made in this space. Thus, beyond doubt, the future of DEXs is bright.

“The dream is getting to a point where decentralized exchanges are so great that centralized exchanges no longer have any advantages.”

Conclusion

Seeing that Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, who wished centralized exchanges to “burn in hell” for their pricey listing fees, nevertheless, we still need centralized exchanges to bridge the gap in order to achieve the “dream of full decentralization”.

While the first generation of DEXs still cannot compete with their centralized counterparts in terms of speed and ease-of-use, our Top 20 DEXs here seem to have carved out their own niches; exploring the use of off-chain order books and smart contract-managed reserves as potential solutions to the exchange problem.For many, the proliferation of Decentralized exchanges is an essential ingredient that will provide resiliency to the cryptocurrency space.